Sons of Israel

The "People of the Book" is a concept of the Quran, expressing the people who received sacred scriptures in the form of a book from the prophets. Sons of Israel constitute a part of the "People of the Book".

Sons of Israel, both with this name and with the name "Yehûd" (Jews), constitute a wide coverage in the Quran. The prophet Moses, who was sent to them, is also the prophet whose story is told the most.

The word Yehûd is found in 41 places in the Quran. One of them is singular and others are plural. Regarding the birth and root of the concept, the following opinions have been put forward:

1. It means the person who is a resident of the Yuda State, founded in the 10. century BC, on the West Bank of the Sharia River.
   According to the Torah, the Yahûd completely murdered the Amalekites, who dwelled in this region of Palestine.
2. It means the successors of Yuda (Yehuda), who was the fourth son of Israel. Yuda (Yehuda) is referred to as Yakup (Jacob) in the Quran.
3. It is the simple present noun "yehûdu" form of the past tense plural "hâdû" in the Quran.
   
   Actually, the Quran, refers to them as "ellezîne hâdû", which means "those who return, those who become Yehûd.
   
   In all of the places where these names are seen, the stories of the Yahûd race-community are told. However, the verses in which their stories are widely told are the verses where the name "Sons of Israel" is used, in 41 places. We also find explanations about the Yehûd in almost all verses telling about the "People of the Book".

For easy reading, let us use the term "Jews" in this article, from now on. The grand ancestor of the Jews is Abraham. In this way, through Abraham, the Jews are related to the ancestors of the Islam Prophet. One is descendent of one son of Abraham, and the other is descendent of the other son of Abraham.

The ancestor who gives the name to the Jews is Israel, and, except two places (3/93; 19/58), he is just the prophet referred to as "Jacob" in the Quran.

While explaining the Quran's Bakara Chapter verses 40 and onwards, the story and manners of the Sons of Israel are given by the glossator, Süleyman Ateş as follows:

"In 70 AD, the Romans massacred the Jews and the remaining had spread across various places. It means that, Jews of the Hejaz Region came to Medina (Yathrib, Arabic: يَثْرِب) in the first and second centuries. Some of them settled in Wadi al-Qura (Arabic: وادي القرى, Valley of Villages) on the way to Yathrib, Fadak (Arabic: فدك) and Teyniâ. They were welcomed by the Arabs when they told them that they are cousins as being sons of Isaac while Arabs are sons of Ismael, both being sons of the same father, Abraham. These people engaged in farming and trade in Palestine, worked the soil in Hejaz and became rich by trade and usury."

"Judaism passed from Hejaz to Yemen in 5th century AD. Some of the Himyarite Kings (Arabic: مملكة حِمْيَر, romanized: Mamlakat Ḥimyar, Hebrew: ממלכת חִמְיָר) and tribes also entered Judaism. However, after the occupation of the Habesh Eyalet (Arabic: إيالة الحبشة; Ottoman Turkish: ایالت حبش), Judaism was wiped out of Yemen. In the lifetimes of God's Messenger Muhammed and the Four Caliphs, there are no records showing existence of Jews in Yemen." (Ateş, Tefsir, 1/153)

The reason that Sons of Israel have a wide coverage in the Quran is due to their being a lesson for future generations by exhibiting betrayals and killing prophets, despite God's great expectations from them. There are no other people who were greatly valued but who also defamed this value by exhibiting betrayal, ingratitude and oppression. According to the Quran, Allah's condemnation and abomination of them is for this reason. Sons of Israel became the representative of a weird fate, both being oppressed and committing tremendous oppressions. They also have a typical status of oppressing their own egos.

The most typical characteristic of the Sons of Israel is ingratitude. When Allah sent them manna and quail, they asked for onion, garlic, squash and bean. Upon this, Allah told them, "Go to Egypt, you shall find what you asked for" and pushed them into a miserable life (2/61). Among examples of their ingratitude, the following can also be seen:

1. Their asking Moses for an idol to worship, after being given a way in the sea, which divided into two, in order to enable them to escape from the Pharaoh's oppression (7/138; 10/90).
2. By forgetting all their prayers right after their rescue, and turning their back to Allah (2/49-50; 20/80; 28/3-5).
3. Their worshipping the "golden cow" right after Moses went to the Mount Sinai (Hebrew: הַר סִינָֽי‎) to pray to Allah and bring blessings for them from Allah (2/51-54; 7/148-155; 20/83-98).

Betrayal of the Covenant and Manipulation of the Book

One of the manners of Sons of Israel making Allah angry is breaking of their promise and contradicting the covenant.

What was the covenant (agreement) that Sons of Israel betrayed?

Bakara Chapter 83, Mâide Chapter 12 and verses after them explain the articles and nature of the covenant between Allah and the Sons of Israel. The articles of this covenant are the following promises:

1. Not to worship or not to be a subject of anything other than Allah,
2. To respect parents and to serve them,
3. To be nice to relatives,
4. To be nice to orphans,
5. To be good to the poor,
6. To say good and beautiful words to humans,
7. To carry out the prayer,
8. To give help, tax,
9. Not to spill blood,
10. Not to banish people from their homelands

Sons of Israel continuously contradicted the articles of this covenant, and either refuted or killed the prophets who came to remind them about the articles of the covenant (2/87; 5/70).

One other behavior of Sons of Israel, contradictory to the monotheistic religion is their alteration of the sacred texts, the divine book. The Quran uses the word "tahrif", which means corruption, alteration and degeneration and states that the Jews degenerated the prophets' heritage (4/46; 5/41-44).

The main objectives of the Jewish alteration of the revelation are self-interest and denial of the last prophet Muhammed's duty. While both the Torah's declarations and the clear messages of Jesus put forward the prophethood duty of the last prophet and the signs of this duty, Sons of Israel denied God's Messenger Muhammed by distorting and degenerating all these (5/41-44; 61/6).

The Quran states that one of its primary objectives is to correct the Jew alterations on it (27/76). The head representatives of the alteration are the Jewish clergymen (5/41-44, 59-64). These clergymen, "by cunning and deception, steal people's assets choke-full, and move people far away from Allah's path" (9/34-35). In this way, the Quran shows that the betrayal causing blockage of Allah's path by piles of lies charged to Allah began with the Jewish and continued with the Christians.

Among the lies Jews fabricated in the name of Allah are their claims: "Allah's hand is tied, Allah is greedy" (5/64), Uzair (Arabic: عزير, ʿUzayr) is son of Allah" (9/30). One other lie of the Sons of Israel is their claim that they are "Allah's friends, Allah's beloved" (62/6; 5/18). The Quran calls these claims as delusions, assumptions (2/111; 4/123; 62/6).

All these manners caused Jews to be condemned and be labeled with oppression, curse and abasement. Their abusing Allah's great trust and blessings for them attracted the Creator's wrath on top of them and made them a focus of hate in Allah's eyes (4/160; 6/146). They are personally condemned by their own prophet (5/78). The Quran verses discussing the condemnation of the Jews, persistently, underline one point: The evil this tribe did to the prophets, especially their murdering of some prophets... This horrible tyranny and evil made the Jewish tribe cursed and disgraceful. Their great torment in afterlife is also for this reason (2/61; 3/21, 112, 181; 4/155).

The torment caused by Sons of Israel to Moses, their betrayal and the problems they inflicted against prophets are mentioned in almost all of the Quran verses talking about the Jews. The following points must be drawn attention based on the Quran:

1. Sons of Israel are continuously going to inflict disorder on earth and create wars and fire incitements. One reason Allah gets angry with them is this sedition (5/64; 17/4-5).
2. Those who have the most violent hatred against the Mohammedan believers are the Yehûd.

Even the polytheists are secondary to them (5/85). What a great loss for humanity that the two family lines succeeding from the two grandsons of Abraham, the representative of the monotheistic religion, fell into such an endless hostility!

The verse of the Quran (5/85) does not clearly reveal wether this hateful manner of the Jews against the Muslims is only for the times that Quran was revealed or for all times. However, when it is considered that the Quran is against the "endless curse" idea, it can be concluded that this hostile manner does not encapsulate all times. Moreover, since the Quran bases good deeds and sins on the principle of individuality, according to the Quran, it can not be defended that the wrong doings of the Jews of the past automatically transfer to future generations. The only thing that can be said is that the Jews have a tendency for those kinds of wrong doings.

The Quran shows its immenseness also in the subject of Jews and states that a community from them would be on the path of good and beauty. This verse, which draws attention to not to close the doors completely and emphasizes the value of not irreversibly expelling mistaken human beings, is as follows:

Quran's Mâide Chapter, 13. verse, after stating Jews' crimes, which necessitate condemnation, their heartlessness and alterations of the revelation, commands Muhammed, and all believers as follows:

When we keep an eye on this approach of the Quran and consider its main explanations about the human being, crime and guilt, we must underline the following point:

The verses condemning the Sons of Israel and showing them as a people of hell, can not be taken as a condemnation of a race or tribe till the end of time. Because the Quran is also against the "condemned race" concept. The purity of nature and the innocence at birth is the primary principle. There is no inheritance and transition of crimes (35/18).

Due to these principles of the Quran, contrary to the Christian assumption, the first sin of Adam was not inherited by his successors. Each newborn is born with a pure nature and without sin. Later, he or she might both engage in sins or protect the purity coming from his or her nature. Thus, the condemned people of the Sons of Israel are those who commit the crimes mentioned in the verses condemning them. If their living children repeat those crimes, they become condemned by the crimes they commit; but, they do not become condemned because their ancestors committed crimes.

For this reason, Mâide Chapter 85. verse, which mentions: "The most severe enemy of the believers are the Jewish" would indicate the betrayers who were the wrongdoers to God's Messenger Muhammed and his followers in their era. Certainly, if those betrayals are committed today, the verse's decree would be valid for today again.

In summary, the verse is trying to state the following: when there are Jews among your enemies, know that the most severe enmity comes from them. Their enmity does not compare with that of others.

Source:

Prof. Yaşar Nuri Öztürk
Main Concepts of the Quran, Istanbul, 2014
26. Press, Volume 1, "Sons of Israel" concept